


Finding Me

by Phoebsfan



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Post Mockingjay, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, finding lost things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebsfan/pseuds/Phoebsfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And though I know he’s never going to be a great hunter, he’s always going to find me."<br/>A story about the inevitability of us and picking up the broken pieces.  Rebuilding more than a District and finding more than hope.  A glimpse of Katniss and Peeta after the rebellion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding Katniss

 

 

* * *

 

When I’m gone too long he’s taken to coming to find me. At the fence, in the woods, by the lake, at the remains of what once was. I don’t always make it easy for him, but he never says anything about it.

He simply holds out a cookie, some bread, something of what he is and tells me he thought I might be hungry. That he made something new and wanted to know if it was any good. That he knows how much I like cheese buns and wanted to make sure I got one while they were still warm.

I never have the heart to turn him away or admit that this time I tried harder to make it so he couldn’t find me. I think he already knows anyway. He’s the only one who comes looking. He knows that he’s the only one I have to hide from. So he gives me some space then comes to drag me from my dark mood.

Every time.

I rarely say anything, just take what he offers. His bread, his heart, his understanding and silence. The shoulder he always has ready for me. I don’t deserve him, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Winter is fast approaching, the chill already heralding the onset of what is certain to be a bitter year. Snow just around the corner, the crisp orange leaves crunch underfoot. Nature grieving for what is lost. Today is one of those days where it’s hard to see what was won in the shadow of the past. I left home early to hunt, the sound of my arrows piercing the silent woods, an action so familiar it soothes.

Dusk is already starting to descend by the time Peeta finds me, I know he’s been looking for awhile. It’s written in the tired way he almost stumbles, his leg clearly bothering him. But he says nothing of it, meets me with a grin and a cheese bun, long cold.

“Thank you,” I offer and scoot over so he can sit on the rock next to me.

“I thought you might be getting hungry,” he murmurs and I smile. He knows I’m on to him, I can tell by the way his cheeks brighten just slightly in the brisk fall air.

I pull apart the bun and give him half, watch as he falters a moment. I don’t usually share my cheese buns, he knows this too. I’m sure he has another one in his pocket for himself, but he doesn’t object as he takes my offering. I think he knows it’s my limited way of reciprocating his gesture.

Our fingers brush, his are warm against my cold ones and I can see him fight back his urge to take my hands between his and chide me about not taking care of myself. I almost wish that he would. I feel like we are stuck here, dancing around what is really happening.

Instead I watch him out of the corner of my eye as we both nibble on our bread. He shifts, readjusts his leg and I know he must be uncomfortable. I feel bad for making him come after me. I feel bad for making him do all the work.

“I bet we have snow within the week,” I surprise him by breaking the rules and our silence.

“Sooner,” Peeta answers and points at the sky, pretending I didn’t just totally knock him over when I set my hand on his thigh.

I look up and sure enough there are little white flakes just starting to drift toward the ground. He looks down at my hand and closes his eyes.

I want to tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. For ruining his life with a handful of berries. For being so cold and distant. For being unable to help him every time he has a particularly ugly episode. For being the reason things are the way they are. For making him traipse through the woods on a regular basis just to make sure I’m still alive.

I want to thank him too, for not giving up on me. Us.

Instead I curl my fingers around his as he places his hand over mine. Instead I let my head rest against his shoulder as we watch the snow in silence. These little moments let me know I’m still alive, that we’re going to be okay eventually.

I’m finding out that maybe these little moments do more than keep me going. That maybe these little moments give me something to live for. Something to cherish and protect. Something to survive and fight for.

Before the games, I used to think that love was something big and loud. That it was desperate and needy and burned so brightly everyone could see it.

Now I think maybe it’s more.

Maybe it’s the quiet way two people find comfort in holding hands, fingers locked together. Or maybe it’s the way Peeta stumbles through the woods for hours to bring me a simple piece of bread. Maybe it’s a smile and a familiarity that makes words unnecessary. Maybe it’s just knowing that you’re stronger with him than you could ever be alone and somehow not being afraid of it.

Before the games, when I looked at my future it was not really a happy place. It was full of fear, of hoping and pleading every year that Prim wouldn’t be sent to the games. That I could catch enough to keep my family fed. That I could maintain. Survive.

Now, despite all the loss, there is something almost pleasant about the future. Something hopeful that never existed before. Something I wish I could share with them, but know they wouldn’t want me to turn it away in remembrance of their loss.

“You’re going to turn into a snowman if we stay here all night,” Peeta whispers as he brushes a few flakes from my knee.

“No, but you might,” I tease and kiss his frosty cheek. Peeta has never been great in the cold.

“You’re probably right, these woods are your home,” he sighs and disappears in his head as he turns his face away.

I reach up and catch his jaw, halting his movement then forcing his eyes back to mine.

He’s wrong.

Maybe that’s what love is. Knowing that all those places that used to fit don’t.

Not without him.

“No. You are,” I smile and he grins so loudly I think everyone in the next five districts can hear it. If grins could be heard anyway. Somehow he’s rewritten the rules about what is and what isn’t real, which isn’t really all that surprising I guess.

“Well…” he starts and stops, gathering his words like he’s so flustered they’re slipping away from his control. The boy who was so good at charming and I’ve left him speechless.

“Well…” I smirk.

He kisses my nose.

“This home is freezing,” he states seriously, but I can see the joy in his perfect blue eyes. I can feel it in the way he squeezes my hand and runs his fingers across my cheek.

“Is it now?” he nods and I kiss his cheek once more, just above his lips.

“You coming?” he asks as I hover near his mouth. Something burns in the pit of my stomach and I feel that feeling again. That hunger of what seems almost a lifetime ago on a sandy beach with the world crashing down around us.

“Always,” I whisper then hop up and pull him to his feet.

He crashes into me, our bodies flush, the cold forgotten as his stupid contagious grin infects me. He’s always doing that, making me light up when the corners of his stupid mouth turn up.

His hands land on my hips and he moves them away quickly, like he’s afraid I’ll burn him. Or maybe he’s just afraid he’ll startle me and have to chase after me through the woods. The image makes me chuckle, Peeta crashing through the overgrowth, cheese bun in hand. Or maybe he’d try to set some kind of snare to catch me, like a rabbit.

“What?” he frowns and I laugh harder. I can’t help myself as I picture him on his knees holding out a pastry and calling to me in calm soothing tones meant to assure me he won’t bite.

He steps back and puts his hands on his hips, his head tilted to the side slightly as if he’s trying to figure out if I’ve finally lost it.

“It’s nothing really,” I try to assure him but he’s not buying it. “It’s just that sometimes…” I drift off, not quite sure how to tell him without sounding like I have in fact gone mad. Instead, I step up to him and place my hands on his shoulders.

“Thank you,” I say then place a chaste kiss on his lips.

Cause the thing is, even if the image of him chasing me through the forest is slightly comical, it’s not altogether untrue. And though I know he’s never going to be a great hunter, he’s always going to find me. And somehow… well it makes everything alright, and I’m grateful.

He places his hands on my hips and holds me for a minute, because he knows what I mean.

I love him, I think standing there in the snow while it melts against our skin in freezing little drops that turn to rivers. It’s not the first time I’ve realized this and it won’t be the last time. But maybe it’s the first time in a long time that I see it in his eyes too. Or maybe it’s not, maybe it’s just the first time I’m willing to admit that it’s there again. Maybe it’s the first time I’m willing to believe that it’s finally time.

Peeta and I have never been great with timing. First he loved me, did everything in his power to save me from the games, the Capitol, myself. Then I loved him and they took him and broke him because of it. When he came back to me he was not my boy with the bread. When he came back to me it near shattered me. He gave up for a little while. I gave up for longer. But somehow we’ve come back to each other, neither one of us whole, but somehow together we’ve found a way to make up for our deficiencies.

Somehow we’ve both stumbled back onto the same page, and for the first time I’m not afraid of what comes next.

“Let’s go home,” he whispers.

I nod and follow him blindly. He knows where we’re going, he’s been there before, and while I’ve looked in the window at it I’ve never been brave enough to cross the threshold. So, I let him take my hand and guide me.


	2. Finding Peeta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She finds me when I’m so lost in the darkness I can’t find any light. Like now, with her hand in mine and her cheek so close to my heart, she’s somehow managed to make the broken pieces fit together and I feel whole for a minute."

  
  


"Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine"  
Poison and Wine- The Civil Wars

* * *

 

Sometimes she hides from me. I don’t blame her for it, I’ve done my fair share of pushing her away as well. So, when she runs off to the woods I try to give her space and pretend it doesn’t unnerve me.

I know that eventually it won’t bother me so much. That it’s only my heightened fear of losing her, and the lingering effects of what happened in the Capitol that keep me on edge when she’s not around. To be fair, it has gotten easier to watch quietly as she slips away and pretend I don’t know what she’s doing.

So I bake. It eases my mind and forces me to think about something else for awhile. I paint and try not to think about all the crazy things that could happen when she’s out there alone. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that we aren’t in an arena anymore and that she knows those woods better than anyone. Sometimes, I have to talk myself out of running after her and make myself focus on the way the paints blend together instead of the way her braid swishes back and forth as she slips away from me.

Every time, I have to remind myself that the little sliver of mistrust isn’t mine, but something planted by a man who wanted to hurt us. One day I hope watching her disappear won’t inspire that doubt.

_One day_ has become my mantra.

I try not to count the days in between now and one day. It’s only discouraging. I try not to think about how a lifetime of memories and feelings could be swayed or lost so easily. I know that it’s not my fault and that there was nothing I could do, but some days are harder than others. Days when she looks at me and has to walk away are at the top of my difficulty list.

I’m not him, and when she walks away we both feel it intensely. I’m the shadow of who he was. When she needs space from us I can’t help but wish for RealPeeta. The boy from before, who scared her away with kisses and feelings. Not the boy with half of his mind, trying to pick up the pieces. Not the boy who scares her away with mistrust and psychotic breaks.

I know that sometimes she just needs space and that I have nothing to do with it. Logically. Just like I know that she isn’t sneaking away to plot my death and that the images in my nightmares aren’t real, but knowing doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. Sometimes side effects of what happened in the Capitol are sudden and jarring. A flash of thought. An overwhelming urge or feeling. My mind starts down a road I don’t want it to take without my permission.

It’s something I’m working on.

And I suppose that it is somewhat soothing to know that my nightmares are still about losing her. Maybe not to death, or another person, but to madness and muttation. I’m not afraid of what she’ll do to me anymore, nor am I full of that loathsome hate that colored everything when I first returned. No, in my new nightmares I’m still afraid of losing her. It makes me feel more like I did before, and oddly enough it gives me hope that things will get better.

Dr. Aurelius seems hopeful about it too. He becomes more confident with every session that eventually I’ll regain most of those missing pieces of my life, and though I might always have lingering episodes, he feels certain that with time they will become less intense and that the time span between them will only grow. He says we’re retraining my brain. So I have a list of things to repeat in my mind, or out-loud, when I feel an episode coming on, or when I know my thought process has been compromised with a hijacked emotion.

He also thought that being around Katniss would help me. That it would help to see for myself who she is and reenforce what I already knew about her. I was hesitant at first, the dark urges that came over me in those early days were almost impossible to control and though I wasn’t entirely sure about a lot of things, I did know that I didn’t want to snap and hurt anyone.

I’ve spent countless hours rewatching clips of our life together. The very same clips that had later been altered and used against us. I’d watch the same scenes over and over again, for hours, days, weeks. At first they’d trigger a violent response, the fear so thick it could choke me. I remember feeling like I was being tortured all over again. Dr. Aurelius would say that we were done and I’d insist he play it again, sometimes he’d restrict my access so I couldn’t continue watching. I wanted every image burned into me, the truth tattooed on my soul, I wanted it to replace the ugliness.

It helped. Slowly. Eventually, I stopped wanting to kill her every time I saw her face. And surprisingly, I found myself wanting to see her face. When I watched the videos, she was beautiful, not the horrible creature in my messed up mind, the one placed there to control me. She was strong and smart. Protective and kind. Resilient.

I painted her that way.

In the quiet moments when the rest of the world was sleeping, I smeared greens, browns, and grays on canvas. Her sad eyes stared back at me as my brush caressed her cheek. Her mouth drawn with the tension of her bow. My fingers tying knots in her silky hair. Little half forgotten pictures of a life I used to have mixed with fantasies of a life I used to know. I had no way of knowing what was real and what was not, but painting her as something other than a monster helped me see her as something other than that.

When Katniss crowded my room, her paintings too loud to ignore, Dr. Aurelius suggested that maybe it was time for a visit. Haymitch could supervise, I could stay in my old house. Maybe it would spark something more. I refused.

There was always pain associated with her, at first it was an intense angry burning that refused to die and an urgent need to stop it. After painting her there was a more muted keening sort of pain, similar to the pain from my missing leg. Phantom echos, that made me almost yearn to see her. As if I knew just seeing her would ease some of my torment.

But I didn’t want to hurt her and it’s hard to trust yourself when you’ve become so well acquainted with insanity.

He told me she wasn’t answering his calls, and that from all accounts she wasn’t doing well. She was already hurting, and seeing me and how far I’d already come might help her as well. I didn’t have to stay if I didn’t want to. I told him I’d think about it and after a few days I decided to call her instead.

She didn’t answer. I was glad.

But I talked anyway.

I told the dial tone all about what had happened to me, what I remembered, what I wasn’t sure happened. Things I hadn’t yet been able to tell anyone. I told her I didn’t want to hurt her, that I was afraid. I was afraid that I might need to see her eventually. That I’d seen who the world thought we were but I wanted to know about who we were off camera.

I only stopped talking when someone came to check on me a few hours later, my mouth dry and throat sore.

I called her house daily after that. She never picked up, but I’d tell her about each little victory.

“ _Hey Katniss, it’s me again. I think I remembered something today. You hated my paintings. We were on a train and you said you hated them but they were extraordinary. You asked how I could paint what we’d been through when all you wanted to do was forget. We talked about nightmares. I’m painting again. I don’t know if you’d like these ones. They’re different. Dr. Aurelius thinks they’re a good way for me to connect to reality, or reenforce it anyway. I don’t know. I’m just tired of painting my nightmares. There are too many…”_

“ _Katniss, did you make me finish your food for you at a party? Did we dance? Did you like it? Did I?”_

“ _Hey, I’m sorry about before. I think I really liked sleeping next to you on the Victory Tour. I shouldn’t have tried to hurt you with it.”_

“ _I’m thinking about coming to visit. You’ll have to tell me not to if you don’t want to see me…”_

So I went to District 12 with every intention of pulling back out and returning to my somewhat self-inflicted intensive therapy routine. Somehow my visit never ended. I think Dr. Aurelius knew I wasn’t going to return, because when I left he gave me copies of all of the clips I’d pretty much memorized and cautioned me against taking things too quickly.

The first few months back were brutal, we didn’t see much of each other. All of our interactions where supervised, outside in the open, or under ten minutes. Most were all of the above.

It wasn’t immediate, but I began to feel safe again. I made her bread, made sure Haymitch wasn’t drinking himself to death, and chased his geese off my porch. She brought us squirrels, her arrows always piercing the eye, just like before. Little by little things would come back to me as we worked on a project Dr. Aurelius had suggested. A memory book.

He meant it as a way to let go for Katniss, but for me it was what it proclaimed to be. At first I couldn’t fill in very many of the blanks and Katniss would calmly explain how I knew someone, or what they meant to us, but as the pages filled so did my mind.

It didn’t take long to fall for her again. It shouldn’t make sense after everything that happened. I think we both had resigned ourselves to being friendly, and maybe even one day being friends. It shouldn’t have been so easy; effortless really. I’m not sure when it happened, or maybe it never really went away. The opposite of love is indifference, and that was something I never learned how to be when it came to her. So maybe it was there all along, buried under all that manufactured hate and fear.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we can finally sit together without me worrying that I’ll snap and choke the life out of her. Well… not too much anyway.

Most days I crave her attention. When she’s with me it’s harder to believe the lies. They will probably always be there, but when she smiles at me or takes my hand they don’t matter so much. I remember that I’ve always craved her company, and from the moment I first saw her I’ve known I need her in my life. She’s always been an obsession, even the Capitol didn’t change that.

Some days I worry just how much she means to me, what it means about me and if coming home was a good idea. If I’ll ever be who I was, or if I’m just a ticking time bomb. If my obsession will hurt us both in the long run.

But then I remember that this is my home. By her side is the only place I’ve ever found any kind of peace, and it’s the only place that’s ever really felt safe. Being with her has helped me immensely in this whole ordeal, and I like to think it’s helped her too.

The nights are the hardest, when she’s at her house and I’m at mine, it’s hard not to wish I was sleeping next to her. Neither one of us seems brave enough to approach that topic though. I hear her call out at night sometimes when she leaves her window open and I can’t sleep. It takes everything in me not to rush over and climb in next to her even though I know it’s a bad idea. Especially when it’s my name she’s calling out.

It’s torture sitting there alone as she screams over and over again.

“ _Peeta! Peeeeeeeta! No!”_

I want to tell her that I’m here, even though I know I’m not quite right yet. I want to gather her in my arms and kiss her brow, feel her curl into me as I rub her back and whisper soothing words. Her hair clinging to her neck, wet with sweat and tears as I pull it free from her skin. Her hands clinging to my shirt, her lips against my neck, her nose digging into to me as she fills her lungs with greedy pulls of air heavy with my scent. She’s never been shy about personal boundaries in the dark of night and it never bothered me. I liked knowing that just being there offered her some kind of comfort.

But sometimes my night terrors are violent, even now. I wake up with my fingers curled inward, little bleeding welts on my palms. My blankets and pillows shredded. My fist slamming into the headboard hard enough to crack bone. My hands wrapped around bedding, squeezing till my knuckles ache.

I know that in my sleep I’m not always in control. If that wasn’t enough of a discouragement, I don’t think either one of us is ready to deal with all the added emotions that come from curling up in each others arms each night, even if it’s what we want. If we do go there again some day it will be with the understanding that we’re more than friends. My shattered mind doesn’t need any more pieces to try and place.

Dr. Aurelius was right about rushing. I’m in no hurry to show her just how damaged I really am. It’s just that sometimes she surprises me. Sometimes she looks at me with fire in her eyes and something inside me responds. So when I go track her down and instead of continuing to brood she hands me half of her cheese bun, places her hand on my thigh, and talks to me… well I can’t help the rush of heat or the urge to crash my lips against hers.

Her fingers are cold and I want to wrap them in mine to warm them, tell her she needs to take care of herself better, but I don’t. Instead I cling to her hand and hold my breath, my thumb rubbing against her skin in lazy undefined patterns. Praying for control, I close my eyes and imagine it’s just us. Just her and me. Just our words and our thoughts. I pretend that I’m me, the one who never had to cling to reality with all I have, knuckles white and aching. The one who looked at her with such faith and love. If I dig deep enough I can still find him.

He wants to tell her he loves her. He always will. Sometimes I can believe we’re the same. Sometimes it’s easy. He wants to tell her he’s sorry, I’m sorry. I wish I’d been stronger for her. I wish I could erase the guilt she carries over what they did. I wish… so many things.

So I remind myself, _one day. One day_.

She places her head against my shoulder, her soft hair against my cheek. I breathe her in. She steadies me. Reminds me. One day. One day.

One day I’ll look back on this moment and know that every time I doubted we’d ever make it to one day she was there. Even when she runs, I know it’s just her way of telling me to hold on for both of us. Sometimes, I think she runs just so I’ll find her. She pulls me out of hiding too.

She finds me when I’m so lost in the darkness I can’t find any light. Like now, with her hand in mine and her cheek so close to my heart, she’s somehow managed to make the broken pieces fit together and I feel whole for a minute.

I want the minute to last forever, even though I know we’ll have to move from this place and the ugly parts of me will be shaken loose again.

She sighs, I shiver. From the cold, from the fire she sets inside me.

I tease her about becoming a snowman and use the snow as an excuse to touch her knee. She burns me through the cloth that covers her, ever my girl on fire. She suggests I am the more likely victim to the snow and she kisses my cheek.

It reminds me that I don’t deserve her. I don’t belong here. I’m just an imposter in his skin. I’m just pretending to be who I should be and hoping one day I will be. I hate myself for it. For not being who she needs.

I tell her she’s right, that these woods are her home. If I was better… stronger… whole…

She grabs my chin as I try and turn away from her to hide my shame. She looks into my eyes, hers are so clear and understanding, like she sees my struggle and doesn’t care. Like maybe she needs this part of me too. She doesn’t let me hide it from her.

Instead she tells me that I’m her home with a grin that melts me.

“Well…” I offer. I have no words as the fire she set rages on. I don’t know how to tell her that I love her and need her. I don’t know how to tell her I’m grateful she’s with me. I don’t know how to promise her that one day we won’t be so broken and that I’m happy for every day in between. Even the bad ones, maybe especially the bad ones.

“Well…” she smirks and I can’t stop myself from sealing my unspoken promise with a kiss on her cold red nose.

I tease her about the cold with fingers on her cheek she teases back with words and a kiss. A slow deep burn and suddenly I’m pressed against her, her lips so close and inviting. I want to capture the moment and hold it in a jar, take it out when things get hard and let the fire she sets in me burn as a beacon of hope for both of us.

I forget who I am and who she is and all the damage between us. It’s just her and me and that ever present need to be close to her. She feels it too. I see my desire reflecting in her eyes and I think for a minute we will both burn up. Consumed by this intense connection and deep desire. My hands brush against her hips and I pull them back before I can pull her closer. It’s a dangerous road we’re on, I know I won’t let go if I let her close and for the first time I think she’ll let me. For the first time I think she wants to burn up with me too.

Then she’s laughing and I step back confused. She laughs harder and all I can see for a moment is her face, cruel and vicious as she stands over me, her arrow in my chest, her teeth sharp and bloody.

_Not real. Not real. Not real_.

I don’t think she notices. She doesn’t always. I’m grateful.

I think I ask her to explain, I don’t know. I’m still trying to get my bearings when I find her standing in front of me, her hands on my shoulders as her words rush through my cloudy mind and push out the darkness.

“Thank you.”

_Thank you. Thank you. Thank you._

Her lips are soft against mine for a brief moment and I cling to her for life. I want to thank her for so much. Thank you, doesn’t seem enough. I want her to know that I understand and that I will always find her. I know she’s always going to be the only one who can find me.

I think she knows what I’m really saying when I grab her hand and lead her through the woods.

She laughs as we rush through the snow and wind, like we have no problems or cares. I smile when she races me to her porch and then stop to watch her win. Haymitch’s house is dark and his geese are penned. I know he’s probably passed out for the night as I climb her steps to join her.

“Slowpoke,” she teases as she catches her breath in the cold air, little puffs like clouds escaping.

“Maybe I just like the view from behind better,” I smirk.

Her eyes widen for a minute, our banter has never really drifted into anything sexual before. The closest we came was when I told her that Finnick would have to get in line to learn her secrets, and I’m not sure she understood exactly all that I meant back then. My Katniss has always been more pure so it surprises me when she smiles and leans back against her door slyly. Sleek and inviting.

“Come in and I’ll make you dinner,” she purrs as her fingers catch in my jacket and tug me close.

“It’s getting late,” I step closer, trapping her against her front door.

“I don’t care,” she whispers against my lips. My hands find her hips as she seals our lips.

“Rebel…” I groan then lose myself in her mouth and skin. Her hands wandering and pulling, freezing against the skin of my stomach.

“Always,” she pants against my neck and squeaks in surprise when I find out that her butt fits perfectly in my palms.

We should stop. I know in the back of my mind this could backfire spectacularly, but she tastes like redemption and hope, salvation and sunshine, freedom and forever, and I can’t stop myself from searching for more with eager hands and hungry lips.

She wraps her leg around my waist and I grab her knee and thrust against her impulsively as she sucks on my lower lip. My hand searches for the doorknob, finds it and twists and we stumble backwards, tangle in each others legs and fall to the floor with a loud crash.

She laughs in a way I’ve never heard from her. Full of happiness, from her toes. I brush a strand of a hair from her cheek and smile.

“What?” she asks as she captures my hand in hers.

“I’ve never heard you laugh like that before,” I explain, knowing I can never explain just how light it makes my heart feel to hear her so full of joy.

“I’ve never heard you laugh like that either,” she defends herself by pushing me on my back and straddling my waist. I don’t object. In fact, I don’t think I’ll mind if she decides to climb on top of me more often. I certainly won’t be stopping her.

Something flits across her eyes, a dangerous flash, and before I know it her fingers are digging into my side and I’m howling in laughter as she finds all my ticklish spots. I fight back and somehow manage to get her on her back, my knee between her legs one hand wrapped around her wrists, pinning them to the ground above her head as I tickle her with my free hand.

“Stop!” she gasps between fits of giggles. “Peeta!”

Then, before I know what’s happening, I’m being yanked off of her by my collar and thrown back out on to her porch. Haymitch hovers over me with a threatening glare and for a minute I’m not surprised he won his games.

“It’s ok,” Katniss says as she stands up and puts her hands on Haymitch’s arm, trying to get him to stop looking at me with murder in his eyes. “It’s ok. Really. He wasn’t hurting me.”

I guess he wasn’t passed out drunk after all.

“Not what it looked like to me, Sweetheart,” he nearly growls, still not breaking eye contact with me.

I get it and I don’t blame him. In a way I’m grateful he’s so attentive. If I had been in the middle of an episode I could have killed her. She never fights back like she should. We were both careless.

“Haymitch!” Katniss yells with an angry tug on his arm and he finally turns to look at her. I use the time to stand up. “I’m fine. We’re fine. He wasn’t hurting me. I promise.”

He looks at her for a minute with a sad expression.

He doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust me most days. He’s right.

“I should get going. Goodnight Katniss,” I offer and then turn to head home.

I think Haymitch must hold her back because I hear them struggle on the porch behind me, but I don’t look.

“Let me go.”

“Ouch! Damn it, Sweetheart.”

And then she’s standing in front of me again slightly out of breath as she puts her hands on my shoulders to stop me.

“I don’t care if both of you insist on thinking you’re never going to be whole again. I need you, Peeta. I’m not going to sit back and watch you lock yourself away from me because you’re afraid you might have an episode. I’m not going to let him, keep you away from me. I’m not going to let anyone keep us apart again,” she presses her index finger into my chest. “That includes you. So go home tonight if you think you need to, but just know that I’m not going away or giving up.”

Then she cups my cheeks in her hands and presses her face into mine, kissing me with more force than she’s ever used before. Leaving no doubt.

Haymitch whistles as she breaks away and storms back up to the porch, shoving him inside and slamming the door behind them.

I laugh and can’t help but pity him.


End file.
